Joe and Ann Pollack, St. Louis' most experienced food writers, lead a tour of restaurants, wines, shops and other interesting places. When we travel, you will travel with us. When we eat, drink, cook, entertain or read, we'll share our knowledge and opinions. Come along for the ride!!
Copyright 2013, Ann Lemons Pollack.

July 14, 2017

Evangeline's

This is not a review. It was going to be, but things happened. I had brunch with four friends at Evangeline’s Bistro and Music House. I’ve had brunch there before, and was happy with the food, the service, and of course the music. I wrote about that here.

But:

Our food arrived 90 minutes after our reservation time, 85 minutes after we sat down. Our table of five did get beverages during that time, and we saw a two-top seated after us eat and leave before our food arrived. The inside was full, and the outside was busy also. It wasn’t the servers’ fault; they were flying around constantly. My friends remarked that this had happened to them on their last visit a couple of months earlier but that they’d thought it was a one-time glitch.

The bananas Foster stuffed French toast could have benefited from a longer bath in the egg batter to soften up the bread’s crust, but otherwise was quite tasty. The glazed bacon is thick and high-quality, chewy rather than crisp. And the coffee was passable.

It turned out to be a gobble ‘n run meal for me, so no tasting around (except from some nicely-seasoned Brabant potatoes). But that wait was completely unacceptable. It was the crowning touch after the manager’s thousand-mile stare as he avoided the hostess-less hostess, people lining up out the door waiting for the empty tables, plus his insistence that it was impossible that the host of our group had made a reservation with a specification like inside/outside or table/booth, because they never accepted such restrictions.

If this had been a one-off, well, everyone has shifts from hell. But if it’s a recurrent problem – and asking around after this experience, I heard more stories – then it’s not respecting the people who are paying for everything in the restaurant and who hope for a good experience. There are places who think that customers will come anyway. I surely hope Evangeline’s isn’t going to turn into that kind of a place. It has too much going for it otherwise.